Revamped Georgia roster, new head coach Mike White giving Bulldog basketball fans hope

Although the season is still very young, the Georgia men’s basketball team is giving its fans reasons to finally feel optimistic after four mostly disappointing years under previous coach Tom Crean.

With new coach Mike White and with a host of new faces, the Bulldogs (7-3) have already won more games six weeks into the 2022-23 campaign than they did all of last season, when they went 6-26.

While last season’s team, which was beset by wholesale personnel departures, never won more than two consecutive games, this Bulldog team has already posted a pair of three-game winning streaks and has won three of its last four games.

A good sign, right?

“We’ve got a ways to go, a ways to go,” White said during a recent interview. “We’re getting better in certain areas.”

Georgia’s most recent winning streak came to a crashing halt when the Bulldogs committed a pair of critical turnovers in the final seconds of the game to fall 79-77 to Georgia on Dec. 6 in Atlanta.

“Our ball security has to continue to improve, our execution, our setting and using of ball screens,” said White, whose team returns to the floor at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 18 against Notre Dame at State Farm Arena. “If we don’t get better in those areas, then we have to run different stuff.”

Georgia is doing a better job “valuing” the basketball of late. In their last four games, the Bulldogs — whose lineups have already been affected by injury and illness — have committed 54 turnovers and recorded 64 assists (a 1.19 ratio), which compares favorably with their first six games, when they had 62 assists and 99 turnovers (a .63 ratio).

White, who recorded his 250th coaching victory on Dec. 2 when Georgia beat Florida A&M, has shuffled his personnel, using six different starting lineups in the first nine games. All 12 players have seen plenty of playing time, and it seems a different player leads the team every game.

Against Georgia Tech, it was Terry Roberts, a senior transfer from Bradley, who had 16 points and seven assists; against Florida A&M it was Mardrez McBride, a fifth-year transfer from North Texas, who recorded 15 points, nine rebounds and four steals; veteran Bulldog Braelen Bridges led the way against Hampton on Nov. 30 with 21 points; and fellow UGA vet Kario Oquendo paced a victory over East Tennessee State on Nov. 27 with 16 points. White remains undecided on how many players will see time once the SEC season begins.

“We’ve got 12 guys,” he said. “The question is, if you’re going to get it to eight or nine if that’s overly important to you. It would probably speed up the level of offensive identity but also defensive identity and role identification.

“It’s easier to know who’s getting which shots, when and where, and what you’re running when you’re playing seven or eight guys. I don’t know if that’s in this team’s best interest, but I don’t know that playing 12 is in our team’s best interest either. So, it’ll be a daily conversation.”

Roberts leads the team in scoring at 14.2 points per game, followed by Oquendo’s 13.9. Nobody has pulled away to become a rebound horse, but KyeRon Lindsay, a 6-foot-7 freshman forward, has averaged 5.4 rebounds per night in nine games.

After Sunday’s game with Notre Dame in Atlanta, Georgia will return to Stegeman Coliseum in Athens to host Chattanooga on Wednesday, Dec. 21 and will play its final non-conference game on Dec. 28, hosting Rider. The Bulldogs begin SEC play on Wednesday, Jan. 4, hosting Auburn, ranked No. 11 in the country before a loss Saturday to Memphis.

Tony Walsh